Linear earthwork

The National Monuments Service's description

Towards the bottom of a gentle SW-facing slope. The name is derived from a local tradition that the linear features were made by a racing wild pig digging its tusks into the ground. The Southern Mucklaghs consist of three parallel grass-covered earthen banks aligned NE-SW but curving slightly to the N at either end and running across the slope (total L c. 210m), terminating just N of the pond called Caldra at SW.
The N bank (L c. 180m; Wth of base 8m; H 1.3-1.4m) has four breaks and is separated by a berm (Wth 2m at NE to c. 12m at SW) from the middle bank (L c. 210m; Wth of base 7.8m; H 1.6m) which is flat-topped (Wth 1.7m) and has four breaks opposite those in the N bank. There are traces of a third bank (L c. 180m; Wth c. 6m; H c. 0.3m) with some breaks which is separated from the W end of the S bank by a berm (Wth c. 5 - 10m). The Northern Mucklaghs (RO021-042015-) are c. 70m to the N, cashel (RO021-042017-) is c. 150m to the W, and ring-barrow (RO022-057027-) is c. 150m to the NNE. Rather than being linear earthworks extending over the landscape as boundaries, the two Mucklaghs may have been an attempt to create large ceremonial enclosures, one within the other. These would have been the largest ever created (int. diam. c. 500m; ext. diam. c. 1km) if they had been completed. (Knox 1914, 27-8; Herity 1983, 131; 1984, 138; Waddell 1983, 33)
Intensive survey, including geophysical methods, suggests that the third slighter bank, being on a different course, may pre-date the other two that could have achieved their present form as late as the Middle Ages. Evidence of a possible Neolithic house site (RO021-042049-) just inside the third bank was recovered through intensive magnetic gradiometry. (Waddell et al. 2009, 89-103)

This is a National Monument in state ownership: No. 473

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 24 August 2010

References

Knox, H.T. 1914 Ruins of Cruachain Ai. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 44, 1-50.

Herity, M. 1984 A survey of the royal site of Cruachain in Connacht, 2. Prehistoric monuments. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 114, 125-35.

Herity, M. 1983 A survey of the royal site of Cruachain in Connacht, 1. Introduction, the monuments and topography. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 113, 121-42.

Waddell, J., Fenwick, J. and Barton, K. 2009 Rathcroghan: archaeological and geophysical survey in a ritual landscape. Dublin. Wordwell.

Waddell, J. 1983 Rathcroghan - a royal site in Connaught. Journal of Irish Archaeology 1, 21-46.